


Who the Fuck is Mollymauk?

by plutonianshores



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Molly is Resurrected, Alternate Universe - Molly is Turned Into a Winter Soldier, Amnesia, M/M, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-09
Updated: 2019-09-09
Packaged: 2020-10-03 20:33:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20459045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plutonianshores/pseuds/plutonianshores
Summary: Molly returns to the Mighty Nein, but not as he left them. Someone has molded him into a weapon and set him against his friends, and he will have a long road to rediscovering who he was and figuring out who he is now.





	Who the Fuck is Mollymauk?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [QueenWithABeeThrone](https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenWithABeeThrone/gifts).

Caleb didn’t recognize him at first. He would hate himself for that later, no matter how the others assured him that they hadn’t either, that there was no reason to assume that the cloaked figure who had sneaked up behind them as they made their way to the nearest town was anyone but a stranger come to kill them.

He should have known. He should have _seen_.

Instead, he’d thrown a fireball.

The figure had spun the fire away with a flick of their wrist, but the movement made their hood slip off of their head. With the glow of the dissipating fire illuminating the clearing, Caleb could make out a set of horns and a head of curly hair. A tiefling, then. As close to the Empire as they wore, he would have expected only humans and halflings, perhaps a group of goblins – then their guest was no common bandit who’d had the misfortune to stumble across them.

Caleb began to back away, readying another spell. The light of the flames made the intruder’s purple hair glint--

Purple.

It couldn’t be…

"Mollymauk?"

The tiefling looked at him dead on, and the familiarity of his face made Caleb’s chest ache. "Who the _fuck_ is Mollymauk?"

The rest of the Nein had begun to surround Molly, and Caleb felt a rush of panic that they wouldn’t recognize him, that he’d bleed to death in front of them a second time.

"Don’t hurt him!" Yasha shouted, her voice ragged.

Molly hissed something at her in Infernal, and she staggered backwards, the hurt on her face quickly replaced by pity. "I know you’re in there, Molly," she said.

Molly advanced, sword held aloft—and then crumpled to the ground.

Beau stood behind him, rubbing her knuckles. "He’ll be fine when he wakes up," she said defensively. "We had to stop him _somehow_."

Nott crept closer to Molly, eyeing him with caution. "Does anyone have rope?"

  


Caleb did have to concede that tying Molly up was best. Still, he hated to see Molly’s wrists and ankles caught up in rope and his mouth gagged. (It bothered him that in with that hatred, there was the memory of past fantasies of ropes tight against Molly’s skin, before he had died and Caleb had guiltily pushed those fantasies aside.)

They should all be sleeping, but instead they were crowded into one of the rooms they’d rented once they’d reached Fallgate, all eyes on Molly. He hadn’t moved since Beau punched him, although she insisted he would come to "eventually". ("I’m usually long gone by the time they wake up, I don’t exactly stick around to time it!") After a few hours slung over Yasha’s shoulder and another while laid out on the floor here, though, Caleb worried.

"We should be ready," Fjord said, "for someone other than Mollymauk to wake up."

"It’s Molly." Yasha clenched her hand around her sword’s hilt. "He’s there, somewhere."

"I mean, Fjord’s got a point." Beau carefully avoided looking anywhere in the vicinity of Yasha. "Last time Molly came back from the dead, it was as a different person. "It might not be Molly in that body anymore. I really hope it is, but we have to be ready."

"Molly is right here," Caleb snapped. He took a moment to control the anger that had come roiling up along with memories of being talked about as if _he_ weren’t there. "He may be able to hear us. We should wait until he can talk to us to make any decisions."

Nott put a cautious hand on Caleb’s arm. "We can wait."

It was a long few hours, all of them staring at Molly and none of them willing to speak.

Molly stirred.

Yasha leaned forward, hope on her face. Fjord did as well, hand on the hilt of his sword.

Molly tried to sit up, looking more confused than lethal.

"We don’t want to hurt you," Caleb said. "But we also don’t want you to hurt us. If I take the gag out, do you promise to talk with us?"

He nodded. Caleb reached forward to undo the gag, ignoring the angry glares the rest of the Nein were surely directing his way. Molly opened his mouth gingerly, then shut it again, shifting his jaw around.

"Are you all right?" Yasha approached him carefully, some of the worry on her face fading when he nodded.

Then he hissed out a curse in Infernal, and Yasha staggered backwards, letting out a quiet gasp of pain.

"Stop!" she shouted. "You don’t have to do this!"

Molly snarled, but then the anger on his face faded. "I...I know you."

"You do," Yasha said, stepping forward to cover his mouth with her hand. "You do."

"I’m going to try a Greater Restoration," Caduceus said, calm as ever. "Is that all right, Mister Mollymauk?"

Molly nodded (as much as he could with Yasha stopping from speaking). Caduceus stepped forward and put his hands on Molly’s shoulders, and a glow enveloped them both.

When the glow faded and Caduceus moved his hands, Molly sank back against the wall.

"You plan on hurting us again?" Caduceus asked, and Molly shook his head.

Despite glares from Fjord and Beau, Yasha removed her hand.

For a long while, Molly didn’t say anything, just stared at one of the few empty spots in the room until the rest of the Nein slowly relaxed. "I’m sorry," he said, voice shaking.

Beau was the first to speak after that. "I want to know what the _fuck_ is going on. Jester, can you cast Zone of Truth?"

  


Molly, as it turned out, didn’t know much more than the rest of them.

"They told me I had to kill you. I did as I was told, just as I always do."

"_Who_ told you?" Fjord asked.

"My masters." Molly shrugged. "I don’t know their names. I could point them out in a crowd, or give you a loose description."

"You don’t want to hurt us anymore?" Yasha said, sounding very calm about having been attacked by Molly only a few minutes earlier.

"I don’t. And I’m terribly sorry about that. I didn’t know you, and then I did and I still couldn’t make myself stop. Whatever he did," he tilted his head towards Caduceus, "lifted a horrible pressure off of me."

"What’s the first thing you remember after you died?" Beau this time, and it was only because Caleb knew her so well that he could hear the shake in her voice on that last word.

"I died?" Molly looked down at his hands. "Everything before my masters is impressions, not so much proper memories."

Caleb thought he knew the answer to his question, but he hoped with all he had that he was wrong. "Molly, do you remember us?"

Molly shook his head. "I know I _knew_ you, but I’m not sure who you are." He shut his eyes, looking worryingly fragile.

"That’s all right, I don’t really know who you are either," Caduceus said cheerfully. "We can reintroduce you if you don’t remember."

"Did you know your name, before we used it? Is there anything else you want to be called?" Nott asked.

"Molly will do. That’s not what they called me, but it sounds...right."

"Does anyone have any other questions? The spell won’t last too much longer." When no one spoke up, Jester giggled nervously. "Okay, Mollymauk, is there anyone in the group you find attractive?"

Beau punched her in the shoulder. "You _don’t _have to answer that."

"I want to know if his answer has changed!" Jester squealed.

But Molly was already answering. "There is, yes."

It was only wishful thinking that he was looking at Caleb when he said that, Caleb told himself.

"Are you tired?" Caduceus asked.

Molly looked at him gratefully. "Very much so. Are we all sleeping in here?"

After a long whispered argument, they agreed that Molly would have a room to himself, with the group trading off keeping watch in case his murderous tendencies returned. The bindings, Yasha argued, were unnecessary – when prepared for an attack, any of them would be able to take an unarmed Molly easily. Fjord wanted to keep him tied to the bed, but eventually conceded Yasha’s point.

Molly slept through the night without stirring, and the rest of them prepared for an uncertain future.

  


When Caleb woke up the next morning, Molly was still there. Caleb had been half-afraid he would disappear in the night, or maybe that he’d never been there at all. But there he was, walking out of the room as Caleb came to fetch Beau for breakfast.

"Did you watch me all night?" Molly asked.

"Yeah," Beau said, an edge to her voice.

Caleb expected a fight, but Molly just shrugged and said, "Probably the smart choice." He didn’t sound upset about the precaution, but his lack of surprise made Caleb’s heart ache in a different way than sadness or anger would have.

"We are going to have breakfast and talk about what to do next," Caleb told Molly.

"Wonderful, I"m _starving_!" The old Molly would have patted Caleb on the shoulder, maybe hugged him. This new, returned Molly barely moved when he spoke. It unsettled Caleb, to tell the truth.

Caleb and Beau claimed a table in the corner, far from the few others in the tavern, Molly following them meekly. As Beau went to order food, the rest of the Nein began to filter in, everyone looking just as tired as they must have felt. None of them had slept much last night, talking over what they needed to know, what these unnamed masters might know about _them_, and whether they should have packed up and ran as soon as they established that Molly was unlikely to murder them outright.

Molly wolfed down the food Beau brought him like he was worried someone would snatch it away. The others wanted to talk to him. Caleb could see them leaning forward whenever Molly let up even a little. Caleb shook his head and made a cutting gesture with his hand, out of Molly’s eyeshot, when Beau started to speak.

"Let him eat," he mouthed at her, knowing he was being irrational and not particularly caring. Molly could finish after they asked him what they needed to ask, but Caleb _knew_ what it was like to go without so often and for so long that you couldn’t trust any fortune that came your way, and he didn’t want Molly to fear that they would take away his breakfast if his answers displeased them.

When Molly picked the last sausage off his plate, Beau pounced. "Did your masters tell you where to find us?" She wrinkled her nose in disgust at the word _masters_.

"Only generally, a few places where you’d been seen. You’re not inconspicuous. I had to track you from there."

"Have you ever tried to run before?" Caleb asked.

"Why would I? I didn't remember anything before them. They gave me _everything_."

"So they will not be expecting this." Caleb pushed his emotions down. There would be time for that later. "But we should expect that they will scry on you."

"You don’t have a way to prevent that?" Fjord asked.

Caleb shook his head. "There are ways, but not ones I can access. Possibly we could buy something, when we return...home. Given the risk of scrying, we should be careful what we say about locations."

"You should get rid of everything they gave you."Beau eyed Molly’s robe. "Hopefully someone can sell us some clothes."

  


There were no shops selling clothing (not unexpected, given Fallgate’s size), but the innkeeper was roughly Molly’s height and the spare trousers she was willing to sell them fit decently when shored up with a makeshift belt. (Caleb didn’t remember Molly being so skinny.) He borrowed Caleb’s coat, wrapping it around himself like armor, and they set off for Rohsona.

It was a long and tiring journey, spent looking over their shoulders and wondering when Molly’s captors would step out of the shadows to reclaim him. None of them had recognized the descriptions Molly had given them of his "masters", and there was nothing they could do besides keep on guard, but it was a nerve-wracking journey all the same. Molly seemed strange, although it took Caleb a full day together to put his finger on why – he hadn’t spoken a single time unless spoken to first.

There was nothing to be done about that, no matter how Caleb wished there was a spell that would bring the old Molly back, or at least chase away the fear that hung around him like a cloud. Instead, he drew Molly into the Nein’s conversations where he could, and enjoyed the glimmers of personality that emerged. Caleb would be happy with whatever version of Molly emerged, even if it wasn’t the Molly he’d known, so long as there _was_ a Molly and not just a quiet, unfailingly polite shell.

  


When they reached Rohsona, Molly took in the streets they walked down wide-eyed, an occasional smile ghosting at the corners of his mouth when they passed something particularly unusual or colorful. Caleb was trying not to compare those reactions with the Mollymauk in his memories, he really was, but he couldn’t help but wonder what kind of buoyant glee a Mollymauk who had never been taken from would experience in Xhorhas. Hopefully Molly as he was now could take the same sort of joy in it, even if he didn’t show it as outwardly.

"We all have rooms picked out, but we can clear something out so you can have your own room, Molly, and then I can help you decorate it!" Jester said as they drew closer to the house, bouncing a little at the prospect of more decorating. "Oh, and we’ll need to buy a bed, but that won’t be a problem!"

"I don’t need a bed," Molly said.

"You definitely need a bed, man," Beau said. "You’re not just going to sleep on a stone floor."

Molly shrugged. "I always have before."

"Okay, fuck that, we’re going to get you the swankiest bed in this entire city."

"With the most comfortable mattress, and the softest quilt! We’re all going to be _so_ jealous of your bed, Molly!" Jester grinned at him, and Molly returned the smile shyly.

Jester’s devotion to interior decorating led to her showing Molly through every room in the house, pointing out the touches she’d added to each bedroom, and the rest of the Nein following along, loath to let Jester into their respective bedrooms unsupervised (at least, that was Caleb’s rationale).

When they reached Yasha’s room, Molly brushed his hand over the flowers that spread across the wall. "Did you paint these?"

Jester nodded. "Yasha helped! She picked the colors and told me what types of flowers to choose, and she helped with some of the leaves."

"They do not look as nice as yours," Yasha said.

"They’re beautiful!" Jester protested.

"Maybe you could help me pick flowers for my walls," Molly said, brushing Yasha’s hand with his own.

"Of course," Yasha said, looking as surprised as Caleb felt to hear Molly actually ask for something of his own volition.

"And we can all paint them together!" Jester clapped her hands together, beaming. "This is going to be so much fun, you guys."

  


The next day, Caleb and Beau took Molly shopping. He needed clothes that weren’t hand-me-downs, and Caleb and Beau had judged themselves the least likely to overwhelm him or inadvertently pressure him into buying something ridiculous.

Molly spent most of the morning going through every piece of clothing in the first shop they visited, occasionally looking to Caleb or Beau for approval. Caleb smiled in what he hoped was an encouraging manner whenever Molly looked his way, after which Molly went back to cycling through the available wares, inspecting each one carefully.

Beau was doing an admirable job of not showing her boredom, although Caleb knew she’d likely rather be anywhere else. He himself was beginning to worry that Molly wouldn’t be able to make a decision on his own when Molly turned back to them holding the most garish tunic Caleb had ever seen.

"That is absolutely hideous," Beau said. Caleb watched her expression go from distracted to horrified. "I didn’t--"

"If you hate it that much, then I _have _to get it." Molly looked surprised by his own words. "That was...I remember you. I _hate _you." He laughed.

"I hate you too, bro." Her smile undermined the words.

The rest of the clothes shopping went by faster, and Molly stopped looking to them as much for permission. He even made a few jokes. By the time they returned to the house, Caleb really believed Molly would be all right.

  


Molly wasn’t in his bedroom. Caleb had gotten into the admittedly bad habit of sending Frumpkin to make sure he hadn’t disappeared in the night, and after two nights of seeing Molly sleeping relatively peacefully, Caleb had found an empty bed. He forced himself to breathe, and called Frumpkin back so he could walk the house himself. He found the door to the garden open, and crept past a sleeping Caduceus to find Molly sitting on the wall and looking out over Rohsona.

Molly looked at Caleb in a panic when he heard him approach. "Caduceus said I was welcome here any time I couldn’t sleep."

"I believe you." Caleb held his hands up, hoping to cut off any further apologizing. "I am having trouble sleeping as well. Mind if I join you?"

"That would be nice." Molly patted the stone next to him, and Caleb sat down.

The city was beautiful from up here. Caleb had forgotten what it looked like to see the streets spread out before you, all of Rohsona’s residents going about their business while you watched. Even this late at night there were people about, far more than there would be in a city not filled with drow and other lovers of the night.

Caleb looked to Molly, who was watching the city with the same rapt fascination Caleb felt. "Are you happy here?"

Molly looked at him, confused. "Of course I am! Happier than I can ever remember being. You’ve all been so kind."

"You’re our friend. I hope you consider us friends as well?"

"I don’t know that I’m much of a friend, but I do."

Molly was looking at _him_ now, with a focus that made Caleb feel too exposed. "I remember loving you, I think. I _know_."

This felt like a dream. Caleb had imagined this so often that he was almost convinced he _was_ dreaming. Surely Molly couldn’t actually be saying this.

And then Molly was kissing him, light and sweet. For a moment, before he remembered himself, Caleb let it happen. The hurt look on Molly’s face when he pulled away made him wish he’d gone along with it longer.

"I understand if you don’t want...this, me, anymore now that I’m like this."

"No!" Caleb took Molly’s hand as Molly began to get up. "I very much do want this, which is the problem. I have wanted you for a very long time, but I was too much of a coward to say so before it was too late. And it seems you felt the same way, but I am afraid those memories have gotten a bit mixed up, and I don’t want to take advantage of you--"

"I’m an amnesiac, not a child." Molly pushed a lock of hair back from Caleb’s face. "I’ll tell you to stop if I want you to, I promise."

Caleb kissed him. It was nothing like he had imagined kissing Mollymauk would be, soft and gentle and careful, and he loved every second of it.

When Molly pulled away, he whispered, "I’m terrified they’ll come back for me."

"We’ll fight them," Caleb assured him. "We won’t lose you again. _I_ won’t lose you again."

"And what if they turn me against you?"

"We’ve faced that before, and not just with you. We’ll get you back. I promise you that."

Molly leaned his head on Caleb’s shoulder. "I’m trying my hardest to believe that."

They sat in silence for a while, leaning on each other. Then Molly said, "We should go to bed, before dawn."

"There is no dawn here." Caleb laughed as Molly shoved him and muttered _pedant_. "But point taken. "

"You’re welcome to join me in my room." Molly flushed a dark violet. "If you want, of course."

"Jester will never let us hear the end of it." Caleb smiled. "But I can handle her teasing if you can."

Molly grinned back. "I’ve faced far worse."

They both sneaked past Caduceus and into Molly’s room. Thanks to Jester’s insistence on buying the largest bed she could find, the entire Mighty Nein could have fit in Molly’s bed, much less just Molly and Caleb, but they ended up pressed close to each other in the center, under a quilt that was indeed the softest Caleb had ever felt. He fell asleep with Molly curled around him, feeling more than ever like he was home.

**Author's Note:**

> Set vaguely post-canon, and will almost certainly be jossed eventually.
> 
> I've speculated on where Molly would be as a level 10 player, giving him (a loose interpretation of) Blood Curse of Spell Sunder for his third blood curse. All I know about D&D I've learned from Critical Role, so please forgive any mechanics errors!
> 
> This was a lot of fun to write, so thanks to my recip for a great prompt!


End file.
